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Friday, October 17, 2008

Chp 205. Online Tribal Warfare!

Online games are fun. Extremely fun. The only downside to playing online games is that sometimes it’s difficult to turn off your online avatar and mistakenly talk in online gaming lingo in the office!

“Congrats on the promotion! w00t w00t!”“huh???”“errr… congrats!”

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“You don’t know how to copy the text from a PDF file? Gosh, you’re such a n00b!”*smacks* “And you’re such a perv!”

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“Our pitch is so good that the client’s account is definitely going to be pwned by us!”“Why the hell would we want to pawn away a client?”

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“Hey Kima we’ve just nailed the FMCG account! We’re doing their entire micro-site!”“woooohooo!! All your account are belong to us!”“sheeeshhh! So many grammatical mistakes and you call yourself a copywriter?”

Coming back to the topic of this post, can you spot the odd one out?

urrrrrmmm…. See it?

These are the members of our "Tribe" at a popular MMORPG game that I play called "TribalWars". In the past few months we have all gotten to know each other very well and many a times I have sacrificed my expensive HC (heavy cavalry) just to rescue a fellow tribesman from an enemy raid.

Good fun we all have, but then, you must be itching to ask me, what the hell is a 28 years old fart like me doing with a bunch of 14-15 years old???

People who don’t know me would probably assume I haven’t matured mentally, or that I’m a disgusting creepy paedophile!!!

I sincerely hope I am not under the radar of any Interpol agencies, and that my profile is not there in ICAID (Interpol Child Abuse Image Database).

I also hope Interpol doesn’t go through my "TribalWars" inbox, and even if they do, I hope they understand that when I threaten a 14yrs old that I’d love to RAM her with full force, it means just that - Attack her village with my large army of RAMs (battering rams), and nothing else beyond the imagination.

And some people who DO know me very well (my dear ex-girlfriend included) would probably exclaim, ah he still hasn’t grown up!

See, in my defense, "TribalWars" is a very exciting game! Here are the reasons why I loveeee this game.

It’s a browser game and it involves resource collection and research/upgrades and army build-up just like AOE, WarCraft etc. But being a browser game, it does not require any sophisticated installations. All you require is a browser (duh!) and a net connection.

The style of the game involves slow resource collection and slow movements. Hence you don’t need to sit in front of the game the whole time, which works out perfectly for me here in office as I just need to click on a few commands once every 3-4 hours. No precious office time is wasted.

It is a MMORPG ("Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" for the uninitiated) which means players I am interacting with are real-time. Remember how excited you were when you played your first multi-player AOE death-match with a friend through an amateurish self-assembled LAN connection? It’s the same here, except I am playing with millions of people all over the world.

Once again I stress – it’s a lot of excitement that requires minimum attention, hence not distracting you from work in any way.

Being a strategy game, it also means you are slowly being trained in micro/macro management, hence it is like a crash course in MBA because you have to manage your economy shrewdly (no cheat codes), display marketing skills by enticing other big players to join your tribe, display HR skills by ensuring that there is good harmony among your tribesmen, and last but not the least, sharpen your "business strategy" by wisely forming alliances or taking over hostile tribes or having a good defensive back-up while attacking offensively.

So I guess it is safe to say I am playing this game purely for its educational value

At first your village will look something like this:[My village "Saiha" in World 25]

This is how my current village "Aizawl" in World 23 is:

And of course this is the dream village most of us are vying for!

And about the interaction with other players part, this is how your map would look like:

The dark blue villages are members of the Tribe I belong to.

Light blue villages are members of other tribes who are our allies [A very important part of the game].

Purple dots denote members of other tribes who are not our allies but with whom we have a "Non-Aggression Pact" [NAP] with.

Red villages are those villages and tribes who are neither our allies nor NAPs, but need not necessarily be enemies too.

Bright red villages are those who are officially declared as enemies. Right now our tribe the “Undead Knights” is currently at war with the "Knights of Fire", which is like 10 times stronger than us! We did nothing to provoke any of their tribe members but being a large Tribe I guess they just simply want to bully others. They may be strong, very strong, but together with our allies we intend to put up a good fight.

Versus

[Undead Knights]

[Knights of Fire]

And this is what I love the most about this game. The moment war is declared in our Tribal forum, we all change our game style immediately from resource collection and building research to complete troops manufacturing.

At first your army may look like this:

[Taitesena is the name of my Paladin at village "Saiha", world-25]

And very soon this is how your armed force can look like:

[Khuangchera is the name of my Paladin at village "Aizawl", world-23]

I have proudly taken the names of Taitesena and Khuangchera, two of our bravest Mizo warriors from our tribal past, as my two special Paladins (we can have just one Paladin per world). I swear to live up to their names and bring out our glorious past and relive the gallant days of Mizo head-hunters! w00t! w00t!

@ Pixie: Haha! Well two of my colleagues here in office who are also both 28 years old are also playing this same game along with me, and they threatened me never to mention we are 28 in any of the forum discussion otherwise the other members will laugh at us or find us weird. :D

I love Caesar too. Emperor is another game I love.

@ lucy: I love playing games when I am watched by somebody who think I am a very good player, so I think you and I will hit off very well ;)

@ toy soldier: Will update your new blog in the Directory today as I am planning to update the entire new list. AOM atchilh ho hi an gay an ti... hmmmm... :D

Yeah.. the age thing was quite obvious but you kinda sensed the questions that were gonna rain down. So phew! Now that we have that cleared out.. i've seen my bro-in-law spend hours on this game. It looked quite interesting. Isn't Travian something like this?

makes me laugh...you...and along with your icon pic or whatever you call it,i always have to laugh at your picture even if the topic is of no interest to me...you rule!!:-)))) ACTUALLY, my Nintendo DS rules my life....

@ eveline: Yesssss its like Travian. I am on Travian too! World s5. :) Travian has even been described as a slow verion of Tribalwars. Which world is ur bro-in-law in? I'd like to farm him or rimm his village *evil smile*

almost: AOE u must be playing with computer. Try this game where you play with real people all around the world. Believe me, the experience from all the conversation and discussion is amazing :)

@ Philo: lolz. long time no see! :) Guess you've been busy, yea this post could be something that only fanatic gamers would appreciate :)

@ marzie: Gmorninnnnggggggggg my dear (although a day late in replying. lolz). Yeah we do have that in common, among so many other things. We should try to have even more "stuff" in common, and I better shut up now before B comes to kick my ass :D

@ shahnaz: hihihi yeah my profile pic actually kinda go well along with posts like this na? lolzzzz. Funny to be 28 and still into these... *GRIN*

Hi Sandman,lol,superb post! Loved every word of it! I can identify with you using all those gaming terms in the office...though your post may be tongue-in-cheek,I actually did have to curb myself a while back.When I started my new job,I was using several gamers slangy terms,had to keep a check on that.Tribal warfare sounds awesome....wish my pc was faster,I would join up for sure.At least that way you wouldnt be the OLDEST kid on the block,lol. I love gaming,I will never stop until the teeth fall from my mouth and my hand cannot hold the mouse any more.Heck ...if that happens then I will use my feet :)

@ mesjay: lolz Pi Mesjay. I can imagine you struggling with Minesweeper. My mom throws a fit too! :D Vist my latest post if you are worried about your age :)

@ Jesse: Thats why I mentioned this is an amazing game because its just a browser game, meaning it does not require high system config etc. All you need is a need connection. Thats all!

Talking in gamer's slang is quite dangerous. We don't even realize we are using it in the real world until we get back that blank expression from our colleagues! :D

Oh please do come and join me. It wold be nice to find somebody older than me! :)

@ Hmai: lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Like I mentioned before, we just need to play it for 5-10 minutes every 4-5 hours. Its a very slow game. It does not distract me from work in any way. Remember those games Mapuia used to play too and interact with players all over the world? Yeah its a little bit more advanced than bunnies hopping over squares (lolz) but at the same time this game requires minimum attention. Once we research on a particular level, there is nothing else we can do except wait for the workers to slowly collect resource again, which takes like 3-4 hours until we have enough to research next level.

:)

And if you are planning to come to this game, let me warn you, my online avatar is an evil warlord and I show no mercy! :P

This is a very interesting post, and the comments are also fantastic to read. I’ll have to have a little re-think about my own contact form on our new website, as this poses some interesting questions! online marketing

Mizohican :

About Me :

If I had a penny for every time somebody asks me: "Hey do you know kheema means mince meat?" I’d be living in a house twice the size of the Playboy mansion with thrice the number of occupants.

Formerly a Copywriter and Creative Trailblazer at Dentsu Webchutney, recently a proud Co-Founder and Chief Ninja of my own dream company FITH Media, currently a Game Designer and part-time Cook at Playizzon and JetGames. I live life to the fullest. Hope you enjoy my blog posts.